Tag Archives: I grew up…
Where I grew up in Queens…
Where I grew up in Queens we did the same thing. The building I lived in was one of a group which formed a circle around a courtyard. They were only three stories high (they seemed like skyscrapers), and it was commonplace to call up to mom to throw down some ice cream money or a ball and glove or just call up to friends either to get them to come down and play or just to have a conversation, window to pavement. Moms also used to call to their kids to come up for dinner. I don’t remember anyone ever complaining! Everyone did it.
I grew up in Coney Island…
I grew up in Coney Island and played stickball throughtout the 1960’s. However, when I moved to Arizona I was involved in the greatest stickball game of my life. I started to play on Saturdays at Arizona State University with three other guys. A pitcher and an outfielder, on the fly against a brick wall. I was playing against my friend Myron (from Brooklyn also) We were both pitching. We each had a no hitter going into the ninth inning. In the bottom of the ninth, Myron hit a home run that landed on the roof of the Women’s PE building to end the game. I lost a no hitter and the game 1-0. We were so drained and I really wanted to beat him, but for that one afternoon, our game transcended time and we were back in the streets of Brooklyn. I’ll never forget it.
I grew up on the Lower east…
I grew up on the Lower east Side and played skulley throughout the late seventies/early eighties. I just read your rules document, and it seems complete. We had prepainted boards that did not have numbers in the skull except 13 of course. We just gave everyone 6 boxus/advances if you knocked someone out of the skull. If you knocked them from skull section to skull section it was treated as a standard hit. Our start was also much further from box # 1. Usually on the oposite side of the board, so beginers often found themself in the skull on turn one. We often switched caps when we became killers and used blasters. My favorite was the libby caps (about the size of todays snapple caps)
I grew up in the lower east…
I grew up in the lower east side, being only 34 that wasn’t long ago. We played the same game but called it ‘Man hunt’….We usually played in the street, but had an apartment version where we played in the building and the staircases…someone always cheated and hid in their own apartment
I grew up in the Greenpoint…
I grew up in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn in the fifties and sixties. We played both basic versions of stickball, the “strikeout” format, with a box chalked on a wall for the strike zone. We usually played this version down by the East River docks, where the streets were lined with boxy wharehouses. Hits were scored based on which story of the wharehouse on the opposite side of the street the ball hit. First floor was a single, etc. Balls caught off the wall were out. Fast and exciting game, and you could have as few as one per side, because fielding was minimal. Even a hard hit shot simply rebounded off the wharehouse wall. The other format was the one more like baseball. With sewers for home and second and first and third somewhere in between. The ball was pitched underhand on a bounce. Someone with longer fingers (like me) could put spin on the ball to make it move in practically any direction when it bounced. We included the sidewalks as fair territory, but hitting a car on the fly was out. But as most people know, rules varied practically from block to block, and it was advisable to get them straight before playing on an “away” court. One time we were visiting another team, and they tried to tell us we forfiet the game because we lost the ball. With these and other games we would keep ourselves busy all day. When I go back to the neighborhood, I don’t see anyone playing street ball, and I wonder what they’re doing with their time.
I grew up in the 50’s in…
I grew up in the 50’s in Brighton, a part of Boston. We played 2 versions of halfball, usually with 2 players per side. There was a wall version where anything off the wall was a hit, depending on height. However, if a fielder caught a line drive or a rebound off the wall, all baserunners were erased. In the street version we hit for distance. Strikes and fouls were outs. Believe it or not, there was a front page story in the Wall St. Journal in 1985 about the summer joys of halfball.(I still have it). It claimed that the game was only played in two cities: Boston and Philadelphia, and the best teams from those areas were about to play the 1985 “World Championship” tournament in a schoolyard in Charlestown, Mass.
I grew up in Flatbush during…
I grew up in Flatbush during the late 50s early 60s, and I played alot of skelley. What was really nice was that I hung out on a dead end street (E 22) and there wasn’t much traffic to interrupt the game. I do recall a that there were usually a few games going at any given time, There was usualy a fresh board drawn to play on, although most of us took great pride in our ability to lay out “The best” Skelley court. The sale of chalk in my neighborhood was probably up there with milk or newspapers. In my neghborhood, we only used soda or beer caps. It was a blessing when twist-offs came out ’cause then you didn’t have to try and straighten out a bent cap to use it. Before them, opening a soda bottle, to get the cap became an artform. We’d melt crayons into the caps, sometimes trying to mix and swirl the colors before it cooled.
I grew up on Olinville Avenue…
Professionals are called…
Professionals are called “speliologists.” Amateur enthusiasts are called “spelunkers.” Bored high school kids from Pennsylvania are called “cavers.” I grew up in the part of Pennsylvania that sits on top of limestone caves. My friends and I would go exploring the caverns between Kutztown and Reading. Never mind what went on down there. Suffice to say, whatever county police department had jurisdiction above us, no law enforcement official ever got his uniform dirty following us down our hobbit holes. You had to wear old clothes. Cave dirt cakes on and doesn’t come out. We’d bring down flashlights and candles, tunes (cassettes, or course, as CDs hadn’t been invented, 8-tracks were so-last-year, and radio was obviously out), lunch, and whatever else we needed. The acoustics were perfect for Rush, Foghat or Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow. There was a reputedly bottomless well of near-freezing spring water. I wouldn’t say we were environmentalists, but we did endeavor to leave the caves pretty much as we found them. There were some kids — from the colleges I think — who didn’t have the same level of respect. Graffiti, cigarette butts, garbage — OK, this doesn’t sound so terrible to anyone who grew up in the five boroughs, but out in America it was kind of disgraceful.